Welcome back at Church

Between Christmas Eve and Urbana, I didn't get much of a chance to go to church "as normal" until yesterday.

I'm always surprised coming back in college how different it is from high school. For one, the staff has changed and there's a new contemporary service that really appeals to me. But more or less.....not too much has changed.

However, now I feel unmistakenly known--and liked. Its almost odd. It's mostly odd because I'm well-regarded because of my differing--often opposition opinion.s

I went to the youth room where my brother was already talking to one of the staff members about myself and my father...probably about politics or something. Suddenly I had an invitation to teach a senior high school Sunday school class--and come to bible study with my brother this week---to help bring up "the other side" so he said. We talked about the narrow-mindedness of many of the youth of our church....engendered by their parents or the political climate of Southlake, I'm unsure.

Instead of going to the contemporary worship service, I went to my father's Sunday School class. This class is called "the Journey," meets in an outside temporary building--my father considers it to be the "Old Communist" meeting....or essentially a meeting of the dissenting White's Chapel minds. Its taught by the same man who invited my father and I to the local Democrat's meeting about a year ago. This--you must understand--is fairly radical for our area.....and especially our church.

This day in class we were going through current events--the one we didn't get to was on the Wren Cross (how ironic!). Coming up soon in the class is a discussion of the 700 years of peace in Spain when Jews, Muslims, and Christians coexisted there without war. They go through current events, talk about other religions and also mostly unsuccessfully--avoid politics.

Somehow in this circle I'm also highly regarded. Probably because of my father....his own little protege, I have strong interest and a lot of knowledge about Sojourner's and Jim Wallis. The teacher even asked a couple of questions directed at me (the class is mostly people 50 and older). Oh, and when this class finished, they decided to push off the begining of the series on Spain's 700 years of peace.....for me to teach next week.....yipee. This time I get to talk about the New Monasticism research I've been doing though. This should be a good opportunity---as my advisor says, practice is the only way I'll be able to ever wrap my head around what I've learned.

And on another note at church--I got an offer to go to New Orleans with the church next week for a mission trip....probably too expensive for me right now.....but it would've been cool to go with other adults for a week and serve with people from my church.

For all the times I felt out of place and confused at church in high school, God is affording me a lot of reconciliation and welcoming people to help pull me back in.